Category: Biblical theology of nationhood

But can you? Can you really make a nation’s borders as absolute as a wall? Can a nation be sealed off in that way? Even Britain as a group of islands discovered what a border is like when Ireland was partitioned, and realised at the height of the troubles that the best guarded borders are still porous. So what are we to make of Mr Trump’s wall, and how should our thinking be shaped by what Scripture has to say about nationhood and migration?

I have mixed feelings about the Trump wall and the reaction to it. On the one hand countries have to regulate their own immigration, to prevent illegal immigration and protect national security. Those who have been running the ‘bridges not walls’ campaign need to think through the logical conclusions of their arguments. Can a country guarantee its own security without knowing who is passing through its borders? When one of their citizens goes to another country, don’t they need a passport for their own protection and identity? If borders did not exist and there were completely unregulated immigration, the overload on the big destination countries and the loss of key skills in the countries of origin would both be massive problems. That is why we have national boundaries, and controlled immigration, and why America has a rather different border with Mexico to what it has with Canada. The Trump wall is only strengthening an already heavily patrolled and fenced border, on a frontier where illegal immigration is a regular occurrence.

On the other hand, there is a fear of the ‘other’ that motivates the building of the Trump wall. Too many of America’s problems are being blamed on other countries, as though if ‘we’ could only keep ‘them’ troublemakers out, we righteous Americans could enjoy unblemished life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The UKIP segment of the Brexit vote labours under similar faulty thinking about Brexit, as though our problems can all be blamed on Europe and left to itself the British are righteous and better than the rest. That is Continue reading “The Porous boundaries of nationhood”→

So 2016 comes to its foundation-rattling end, and so many people want to forget it as the collective nervous breakdown in the West continues. A New Year is a moment for Christians to reflect on how we can be different in the year to come. Here are five pleas I want to make for Christians and Churches to consider putting central in the coming year.

1. Hope in God. In the two great psalms that explore despair and hope, Ps 42 and 43, the psalm writer repeats the exhortation to himself: ‘Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.’ At the end of the year that has seen some great political earthquakes, an appalling civil war in Syria, and massive terrorist attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, do you have real hope? I ask this because I have heard so many Christians say as the next upheaval or calamity happens, ‘But still, God is sovereign’, almost as though this is our last ditch hope. We have our own plans and our routine, and we plug on through life seduced by the certainties of a daily working routine, a stable stock market and a quiet suburban life. But when everything is thrown up in the air, whether in a referendum result, a presidential election, or the more visceral and desperate aftermath of a terror attack, then and only then do we clutch hold of the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God should not be our last and desperate refuge. He is our salvation and our God! We should be close to him, united through the daily fellowship of prayer, looking at the world as his world, and every aspect of our lives as lived for his glory. Our confidence should be in him, whatever happens, and whatever foes we face, knowing that in life and in death he is our salvation. Continue reading “5 priorities for 2017”→

The Rio Olympic Games have finished. I love the spirit of the Olympics, the absence of the ‘winner takes all’ culture of so much competitive sport, and the ability to celebrate every level of achievement. Competitors who have just run what appear to be the most brutally competitive of races turn at the finishing line to congratulate each other as friends and celebrate the achievements even of the person who came twelfth. While the Olympic movement has its own moral challenges and can occasionally show the worst in human nature, this peaceful gathering of nations can make us look forward with longing to a much, much more glorious gathering of nations, when the redeemed gather in the New Creation.

Which raises a question: will there still be nations in the New Creation? My instinctive reaction is to say that if we will not marry or be given in marriage at the resurrection, surely nations will be a thing of the past as well. But I am not so sure. The Book of Revelation makes some extraordinary statements that we have to reckon with. While we must always be guarded over prophetic statements in Scripture that have yet to be fulfilled, we should still wrestle with the text and read it in the context of the rest of Scripture. There are four statements in Revelation 21-22 that I believe are significant clues about nationhood in the New Creation. Continue reading “Will there be nations in the New Creation?”→

‘Pentecost marked the reversal of the curse of Babel.’ So goes the traditional narrative that tries to tie together these two major events in the history of the nations: Babel marked the cursing of the nations with different languages, and Pentecost marked the beginning of the reversal of that curse. Babel scattered the nations, and Pentecost marked the global moment when the scattered nations began to come together again through the gospel. While I used to hold to this view, I no longer think it is tenable from the text of both passages, and we have to relate Babel and Pentecost together more carefully. This is an issue of huge importance, not just for how we understand the world but for setting our priorities in mission.

There is no doubt that there are strong connections between the two passages. Acts 2:9-11 is a mini Table of Nations that echoes Genesis 10. Where the city of Babel came together in its rejection of God, the crowd in Jerusalem were brought together to worship him. Where the people of Babel were ‘confused’ by what they heard in Gen. 11:7,9, in Acts 2:6,12 they are ‘bewildered’ and ‘amazed’ because they can understand. There is no question that Luke is aware of the words used in Gen. 10-11 when he writes Acts 2, and that the terminology is reflected in what he writes. So what is the connection between the two events? In what sense was this a ‘global moment’ causing the gospel to spread around the world? Continue reading “Was Pentecost a global moment?”→

The tragic death of Jo Cox MP has had a cauterising effect on political debate over the last couple of days. Politicians seem embarrassed for the way they have been treating each other in the referendum debate. Perhaps now, cooled tempers can allow us to think respectfully and with humility about the great judgement we each have to make this week. So far the debate has focused mainly on three issues: the future trajectory of the economy, democracy, and immigration. You can read the tea leaves how you please on the first, have a reasoned argument about accountability on the second, but it is immigration that really raises the blood pressure. So let me here make my contribution to the debate as a Christian who believes passionately in biblical nationhood, but who is appalled by racism and nationalism.

What an old-fashioned question! In a globalised world, hasn’t the concept of a nation become threadbare and obsolete? Among academics and the political class, the nation-state is seen as a fairly recent innovation and one whose purpose has already failed in modern history. They argue that nation-states emerged in the American and French revolutions, spread in the 19th and 20th centuries across Europe, especially after Versailles, and then spread to the developing world in the wake of empire. However, the nation-state has seen its place eroded by the growth of international institutions and multinational companies, the advance of international law and the spread of global communications. Nations have served only to fuel violent nationalism, so the argument goes, in which case we are better off sitting loose to our national identity and pooling our sovereignty for the sake of a wider peace.

This is the argument of the liberal secularist establishment. It is based on two false assumptions. First, that the nation-state began around 1780, and is an entirely secular concept. It is assumed that by ‘nation’ we mean simply a defined territory, with a citizenship that forms the ‘body politic’, that sovereignty is vested ultimately in the people, and that nationhood consists purely in terms of political power, economics and the workings of government. Second, it assumes that nations spawn nationalism and that the wretched wars of the twentieth century that tore Europe apart in two world wars are the inevitable result. I will try to show over several blog posts that both these assumptions are wrong, and that the biblical concept of nationhood is much, much older than the French revolution.

I wish to argue that there is a biblical concept of nationhood that is part of God’s creation order, that it is a much richer idea than the secular nation-state and not to be confused with it, and that nations are still part of God’s plan and (surprisingly) will be part of the New Creation. Understanding nationhood is essential, among other things, to understanding Christian mission. Continue reading “What is a nation?”→